There is a lolicon scanation site set up like a blog named Little White Butterflies that has been removed from Google’s search engine. It was from an anonymous person with a Google link to ChillingEffects.org explains the request when you search for the site. From my knowledge this has never happened before and this contradicts all of Google’s past behavior. Google is in conflict with China over censorship and so far did a lot to help find middle ground. Because the request came from an activist likely, they surely had good intentions. The site that this involves does know the laws that relate to this and even pointed pointed out that Chilling Effects hasn’t fully kept up to date to how the laws for this are set up. “This definition does not apply to depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults” which can be seen here. The link is to the current version of Title 18 of the US Code passed by Congress in January 5, 09. Even if you don’t support such content or media, this is still censorship and it is subjective.

One problem which was stated by co-blogger EhNani is fighting back will only draw more attention to the issue. With more attention you’ll have more coverage from average people who won’t understand the whole scoop of things, its culture of origin, and context. The best a site can do is privately discuss reconsideration with Google. Perhaps this entry itself isn’t helping matters.

Edit: The sites content could still be considered illegal for being obscene, see Raiga’s comment bellow.Edit: Decided to include the link. The linked page is fine, but the rest is not safe for work or school.

“It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.”

Basically, “drawings are no longer child porn, but they’re still illegal, under another section.” Which is completely sneaky and disgusting.

The fact that this sort of stuff has started to happen is really, really disturbing. Those laws shouldn’t exist in the first place, and their vagueness is just causing them to expand; after all, people are going to err on the side of not breaking the law, especially when penalties are so severe (draw a picture of a loli, get at least 5 years in federal prison), meaning the restrictions on freedom of speech are just going to get worse.

You’ve misreported the news here a bit. Chilling Effects isn’t the site that issued the notice. They’re a clearinghouse where sites like Google can report about the take-down notices they receive so that there’s a sort of public record of this sort of thing. Legally speaking, Google is pretty much obliged to follow due process whenever such a thing is reported, since they don’t want to be held liable.

Even if there is a law against obscenity it can’t be held up legally in court do to the fact that an obscenity is subjective and is determined by the person determining what is an obscenity. An example is that some religious people would consider a book about a homosexual relationship as an obscenity which means through their views that book would be illegal.

I honestly think the whole thing is pretty silly. A while ago, there was apparently an article about Google hosting cp. However, Dance in the Vampire Bund is not so much cp but some nudity. Yet, you get places like discovery channel that show full nudity of real people and it is ok?